Surfer founder and publisher John Severson didn’t just embrace the counterculture, he turned it into sound business practice. In early 1968, Surfer remained the bulwark of surf media conservatism. The photography was first-rate, the magazine was well-organized and professionally assembled, and circulation was holding steady at a hundred thousand—by these and other measures, no other surf periodical was close.
Surfer was also as predictable as oatmeal. If it wasn’t yet square, it was heading i...
